Nous sommes très heureux d’annoncer que Guillaume Fourcade (VALE) et Kim Andringa (REIGENN) ont obtenu un projet Emergence de Sorbonne Université pour 2023-2025, intitulé « Canon Factory ». Ce projet, interdisciplinaire, est décrit ci-dessous.

2023-2025 Emergence research project “Canon Factory” (CanFac)

Project presentation:

With its emphasis on the UK and Scandinavia as well as the German- and Dutch-speaking worlds, this project is dedicated to the study of literary works which, on the surface at least, are considered as not belonging in the canon and, for some of them at least, are not perceived as literature at all (spoken word performances, drama by non-native speakers, LGBTQI+ dramatic performances and fiction, novels in-between languages, graphic novels). Adopting a comparative perspective, it intends to explore to what extent they question accepted (and celebrated) forms, become part and parcel of them, or fashion a new canon. Along its two-year development, over a series of seven half-day workshops and a two-day international conference, the project will therefore investigate the forces and processes at work in what it will refer to as the “canon factory”. It will not only compare, contrast and question works and “genres” (or non-genres) from different linguistic and cultural areas, but it will also seek to approach them from a variety of methodological and conceptual perspectives. If close “readings” of its various objects are central — including of those that defy reading — , the project will resort to and combine the tools provided among others by postcolonial literary studies and decolonial praxis, text and image theories, reception theories, queer and gender theories as well as publishing history and publishing sociology. It will unfold along the following lines: 1) Questioning the Canon, 2) Performing the Canon, 3) Re-forming the Canon.

Keywords:

Canon, British postcolonial literature, German-language literature, Dutch-language literature, Scandinavian literature, Spoken word, performance, novel and graphic novel, Minority authors

Project team:

The project involves scholars from Sorbonne Université research teams VALE (UR 4085) and REIGENN (UR 3556):

– Dr. Kim ANDRINGA (Co-principal investigator, senior lecturer, Dutch studies – REIGENN)

– Dr. Sylvie ARLAUD (senior lecturer, German studies – REIGENN)

– Dr. Alessandra BALLOTTI (senior lecturer, Scandinavian studies – REIGENN)

– Pr. Bernard BANOUN (full professor, German studies – REIGENN)

– Dr. Jaine CHEMMACHERY (senior lecturer, Anglophone studies – VALE)

– Dr. Eric CHEVREL (senior lecturer, German studies – REIGENN)

– Dr. Guillaume FOURCADE (Co-principal investigator, senior lecturer, Anglophone studies – VALE)

– Dr. Jean-François LAPLÉNIE (senior lecturer, German studies – REIGENN)

– Dr. Benjamine TOUSSAINT (senior lecturer, Anglophone studies – VALE)